Dracula

Dracula, you kill me

Given he's such an iconic figure in literature and cinema, it
took long enough for the Dracula parodies to start appearing.
There was Bela Lugosi poking fun at his image as one of the
villains in 1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,
(1948), but that hardly counts—so to speak.

Finally in 1979 we get the first sustained take-off on the
Dracula legend. And for me it's the
best and funniest. It's Love at First Bite(1979), a surprise
hit in which George Hamilton plays Dracula for laughs.

Hamilton is terrific and shows great comic timing in the
role. The oily vampire comes to
New York to raid blood banks and woo Susan Saint James (later co-starring in
TV's MacMillan and Wife) to become his bride.
Comic actor Arte Johnson is his Renfield and everyman Richard Benjamin is a Van Helsing
descendant who has changed his name to Rosenberg to start a
career as a psychiatrist.

Very funny in a throwback kind of way. Biggest in-joke:
how does night-stalking Dracula get the tan that Hamilton famously sports?

Hamilton has been trying to get a sequel to Love at
First Bite—Love at Second Bite?—off the ground ever since, most recently being reported as hoping to update the story into the Twilight era.

Dracula, you're such a dope

Not quite as successful is Mel Brooks's Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995),
starring Leslie Nielson. Brooks had earlier struck comic gold with his
monster spoof Young
Frankenstein but this companion piece was dismissed by critics.

Leslie Neilsen as goofy Dracula

Dead and Loving It is a straight-ahead spoof of the
original story, possibly inspired by Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, a few
years earlier. And it's not as dismal as claimed by critics, who
were perhaps expecting something more outlandish than an
old-fashioned parody.

Neilson is his usual goofy self, perhaps putting even more
into his comic acting for Brooks here than he usually does.

If you like
slapstick and obvious humour (I admit I do), you'll enjoy Dracula:
Dead and Loving It. If not,
you really don't need to see this.